He said the local subsidiary’s operations are not influenced by a decision of DHL owner, Deutsche Post, to lay off personnel and reduce operations.
Some 9,500 employees will be laid off in the U.S. A further 5,400 jobs were cut earlier this year.

“The current situation in the U.S. will have no impact on DHL Romania’s operations or on the delivery capacities to and from the U.S. Romania has mostly commercial operations with European Union countries, so our development depends more on that market,” Sharp added.

DHL Romania currently has 540 employees. Some 100 of these were recruited between June and November. Personnel costs rose some 15-20 percent this year and salaries will keep increasing, at least to cover for inflation. According to Sharp, the company will keep motivating its employees, especially since 2008 was DHL’s best year in Romania.

“Our growth was 30 percent compared to last year. We are involved in recruitment and personnel development operations and do not foresee a change in the future,” Sharp stressed. However, “we expect to face a more difficult economic period in 2009. We set our budget for 2009 by taking this into account,” he added.

DHL’s main competitor locally is TNT Romania. Other international players in the field are UPS and FedEx.